When I was working in a software development company, while appraising team memebers, we were alerted to the so called “recency” effect, by which we are likely to give more weightage to more recent deeds of employees, while we’re actually expected to evaluate their contribution throughout the appraisal period. A similar effect can be seen […]
A World of “Unbreakables”!
My friend and I were waiting to cross the road, when this particular thought crossed my mind – “What would we do differently, if human body would not be damaged by physical impact?”. The way I imagined it was, if a car were to hit you, you might be thrown off a few metres (following […]
The Chilly Parotta Paradox!
I had dinner from a South Indian restaurant last week and, for a change, I ordered Chilly Parotta. If you haven’t tried it before, I might try to explain it as a very spicy preparation based on Parotta. Parotta itself is unhealthy, and if you can somehow make it more so, that is by transforming it thus! […]
A Lesson in Being Remarkable
It’s a sad story from my school days – early school days, in fact. I was 5 or 6 years old, and I don’t remember many of the things that happened back then. But this one I remember so vividly that I still feel a crushing sorrow as I recollect this story. For us, Saturday […]
Sorry, I’m not your common man!
In spite of the very narrow focus that they had from the beginning, I had hoped that Arvind Kejriwal would bring some freshness to our stale political arena. However, with their vision document, they had already forced me out of that wishful thinking, and now with the party and its name being official, I clearly […]
Human Intelligence Then and Now
I followed a link posted by a friend on facebook, to this interesting article which cites a study that claims that Human intellect peaked a few thousand years ago and has been declining since. The gist of the argument is that “Since the invention of agriculture and cities, however, natural selection on our intellect has effective […]
An Idiotic Legality
I saw something today, that is rare to see in this age of political correctness. On an income-tax related site, the instruction for a set of fields was rather surprising (almost shocking) Full name, address of the Representative Assessee, who is assessable under the Income Tax Act in respect of the person, whose particulars have […]
Heavenly Light
Light that shines through darkness, and success that comes through struggle, are both so uplifting!
Disproportionate Press Coverage
I can’t help thinking that there may be some vested interests in all the press coverage and attention given to the Pakistani girl who got shot for speaking up against Taliban. While it’s definitely unfortunate for anybody to get shot, and much more when the victim is a child, this is not the only incident […]
Fear of the Dark
It seems a vast majority of humans are afraid of the dark, or have been afraid as kids. It’s so common, that there’s even a wikipedia page on this topic. There are also several theories trying to explain why children (and adults to some extent) have this fear. From the wiki page, it appears that […]